


Whatever It Takes

by inkedinserendipity



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (the answer is: whatever it takes), Angst with a Happy Ending, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, what is equivalent to re-housing a soul?, what is equivalent to regaining a body?, what would you sacrifice to give back to your best friend her family?, with that equivalent exchange thing, y'all ever seen fma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-03-07 02:39:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18864043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkedinserendipity/pseuds/inkedinserendipity
Summary: No great magics come without a price.(In which Caleb makes a Wish.)





	Whatever It Takes

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the prompt: For the prompt: “I would apologize but we both know that I’m not sorry.”
> 
> I've got several takes on this one lined up! This one is actually the, uh...the least painful of them.

She’s soft.

That’s the first thing Nott notices: she is soft, and she is whole.

Goblin skin is rough. Like leather, or paper. For months, for years now, sunlight prickled across her skin like little needles dancing along her arms. Nothing but the thick, heavy taste of meat could sit pleasantly on her tongue, and even the fresh summer air, a breeze she knows full well should be ripe with fruits and flora and the smell of rain, or plump, fresh earth; even that, she could not smell. Goblin noses work well for blood and the bright energy of the earth like lightning, after a storm. Static and veins. 

But halfling skin–oh, she’d missed this. She turns her hands over in front of her eyes, marvelling at the clean dark complexion of her fingers. She runs them through her hair, breath stuttering gleefully in her throat—it’s so  _smooth!_ —and her fingers catch on her button necklaces. Her grin bubbles up into bright laughter, relief and joy all in one.

“We did it,” she breathes, smiling so widely her jaw hurts. Even this, too, is different; it is so much easier to hurt, as a halfling. “Caleb, we did it! I’m—I’m me again!”

“Good,” Caleb says, voice faint. “That is good, Nott, you are—you are yourself again! At last!”

“I missed this,” Nott says, and runs her fingers along the button necklaces adorning her neck. Gods, he’d gotten everything down to the coarse twine connecting her collection. “Caleb, you’re so amazing, I can’t believe this, you got everything right!”

“Ja, good,” he says again, sounding exhausted. Nott looks over; he’s sitting hard in the grass, his eyes shaded from the sunlight, but there is a genuine smile on his face. “I am so happy for you.”

She plops herself down beside him, twisting the fabric of the dress between her fingers. It’s how she remembers it, all of it—the soft drape of heavy fabric across her thighs, the smooth cool dents that the other half of her collection left in the hems, adorning the bright centers of flowers she stitched herself. She throws her arms around him, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

He startles for a moment, almost seeming to lose his balance in the grass, before hugging her back just as hard. “Thank you,” she whispers, eyes stinging. It doesn’t feel real, not yet—and it won’t, she knows, until tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, or a week from now, when she keeps waking up in the right body—but she knows, she  _knows_  that he’s done it, that  _they’ve_ done it, and that she is whole again.

“You do not need to thank me,  _schatz_ ,” he murmurs against her hair. “It was a joy of mine. You know that.”

“Melodramatic wizard,” she scoffs fondly. “I’m allowed to say thank you, Caleb. This is—this is everything I wanted. So thank you.”

“You are welcome.”

She leans back, still beaming, cheeks still wet, and presses their foreheads together. 

It’s an old motion; as practiced and comfortably worn as him swinging her up on his shoulders, or the fond cant of his lips when he catches her stealing, but for some reason, when she braces her skin to his, he jumps.

“Caleb?”

Nott pulls back, concerned, and her breath freezes in her chest. 

He falls still under her scrutiny, hands folding together in his lap. A wry smile twists at his lips. “Sometimes there is a price,” he says quietly.

She looks, and his eyes are a clear and crystalline white.

“Oh,” she breathes. “Oh, gods, what—what happened?”

“Wishes do not come for free, my little friend,” he murmurs, and reaches for her. She intercepts his hands with her own, and pulls them both to her face. 

His smile turns more genuine again as his fingers splay along her cheek. He runs a flat palm along her jaw, up to her ears, smiling even more broadly when he finds them curved and unbandaged, smooth save the jade buttons hanging from the lobes; and he laughs a little, quietly, at the combed fall of dark hair over her shoulders. 

“I am so glad,” he whispers, his sightless eyes turned searchingly toward her face. “Nott, I am so glad. This is  _you_.”

“It is, Caleb, it’s me, but….” She reaches for his face now, running her thumbs beneath his eyes, helpless tears spilling from her eyes—joy, relief, sorrow, everything all at once. She’d forgotten this, too, how much a halfling  _feels_. It is overwhelming and heady and she is so, deeply glad to have it back. “But your  _eyes_ , Caleb, you can’t  _see_ ….”

“That is beyond me at the moment, ja,” he agrees, laying his hands over hers and holding them there. “We will see if there is a way to bring it back, but there are prices for these sorts of spells, Nott, and this wish of mine was an important one to me.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I am not,” Caleb says firmly. 

“But your eyes—”

“ _Schatz,_ ” Caleb interrupts, reaching blindly to brush hair from her face. It’s another motion that should be smooth, but she’s taller now, and her face sits higher than it used to, and her heart breaks a little when she has to guide his hand gently to her temple. “Nott, listen to me. I do not regret this at all. You are back, I have seen you back to your body. You are  _whole_  again.” He smiles softly. “I am glad for you. There is nothing about this that I regret.”

There is determination in his eyes, even though they are blank. Nott sniffles a little, and his hand wanders toward her cheek—to wipe tears away, as this, too, he has done many times before—and this time, succeeds. 

He lets his forehead fall forward, and without thinking, Nott presses her own to his.

There is so much she wants to say: to apologize, or to say, again,  _thank you_. To tell him how deeply she appreciates the time he spent on this, the long hours and sleepless nights, how she will never forget this, how she  _could_  never forget this, or him. But she leaves it. 

Caleb already knows what she would say.

So instead, she talks about what he does not know: what it is to be a halfling after so long as a goblin. The newfound smoothness of her skin, the itch of thick hair against her scalp, how the wash of sunlight along her body is no longer prickly, but warm, and soothing, like a soft woolen blanket. He smiles to hear it.

They stay that way for a long while, Nott’s words no louder than a murmur, hands linked between them, as the sun rises and falls in the sky; and they continue even after that, even as their shadows grow long, together.

When sunset breaks, painting the sky with purples and pinks, Nott talks about that, too. She doesn’t want him to forget how vivid the world can be.

And when night well and truly falls, when the stars are out and bright above their heads, Nott helps Caleb to his feet, and together they move toward their cart and the road to Zadash, where the rest of their family waits. 

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me at @inkedinserendipity on [tumblr](http://www.inkedinserendipity.tumblr.com)!


End file.
